[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2586-S2589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Net Neutrality
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues on
the floor to very strongly support the Congressional Review Act
resolution to restore net neutrality and maintain a free and open
internet. I applaud Senator Ed Markey for his leadership in introducing
this Congressional Review Act resolution.
Restoring net neutrality is especially critical to small businesses
and startup companies in New Hampshire and across the United States.
Small businesses are the backbone of our Granite State's economy. They
represent 99 percent of our employers. The internet continues to
provide opportunity for these small businesses because it levels the
playing field. It makes it easier to find new customers and grow
online, but that level playing field is now in jeopardy because of the
Federal Communications Commission's decision to end net neutrality
protections.
Last Thursday, I convened a field hearing of the Senate Committee on
Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire.
I wanted to hear concerns of our small business owners about what the
net neutrality rollback would mean to them. In particular, they are
concerned that net neutrality will impede their ability to expand and
create jobs.
In conversations with small business owners and leaders across my
State, they tell me this rollback is a direct threat to their
businesses. They say it would be like watching their large competitors
take the highway while they are forced to take the slow roads. Without
net neutrality, broadband providers could charge more for fast lanes--a
cost that many small businesses simply can't afford. This would put
them at an even greater competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis large
corporations that have the resources to pay for those fast lanes. In
the digital age, speed is critical.
Witnesses at our field hearing pointed to research showing that even
small delays of a second or less--just think about that, a second or
less--can lead to the loss of significant sales. Customers today expect
a fast, easy online experience. It is clear, small businesses operating
at slim margins would lose out to big firms that can afford the fast
lane.
Josh Cyr, who testified at our hearing, is an executive with Alpha
Loft. Alpha Loft is a startup incubator that is based in Manchester and
Portsmouth, NH. At the field hearing, he had a stark warning. He said:
The repeal of net neutrality protections enables a small
handful of very powerful internet providers tremendous
control over what is delivered to consumers' homes and the
speed with which it is delivered. Without net neutrality, the
power and control these internet providers have will allow
them to create artificial market barriers.
The repeal of net neutrality would pose even greater challenges for
small businesses in rural areas. As Senator Klobuchar said, she has a
lot of rural areas in Minnesota. Well, so does New Hampshire. A 2015
survey by the University of New Hampshire showed that nearly 40 percent
of New Hampshire residents who were polled said they were using their
current provider because it is the only option available to them. Many
rural small businesses will have nowhere else to turn if their
broadband provider decides to charge more or slow down the connection.
Our witnesses noted that net neutrality could heighten the rural urban
divide, making it more challenging for small businesses and rural
communities to reach customers, attract workers, and stay connected.
One of the other people testifying at the hearing was Nancy Pearson.
She is the director of the New Hampshire Center for Women and
Enterprise. She testified that net neutrality is a matter of equality.
She said:
New Hampshire small businesses and microbusinesses rely on
the equalizing force of the internet, and just to put that in
perspective, women start businesses at five times the rate of
any other entrepreneur--
[[Page S2587]]
and for minority women and veterans, that number is even
higher. So when we start putting barriers in the way of these
entrepreneurs, it can have a significant and, I think,
disastrous effect.
The FCC's rollback of net neutrality rules is also creating
tremendous uncertainty, especially for startup businesses that are
looking to plan ahead. It could have major ramifications on sales,
marketing, and internet costs that small businesses just can't predict.
Participants at the field hearing warned that the FCC's decision will
affect not only businesses but also institutions of higher education.
It will also negatively impact efforts to provide telemedicine
consultations to patients who don't have access to services locally.
Again, we have a big rural population in New Hampshire--well, a small
population but a lot of rural areas.
I am concerned, for instance, about the impact on the Veterans'
Administration's outpatient clinic in Littleton, NH. It relies on
telemedicine to provide psychiatric care to veterans in remote
locations. What will happen if they can no longer provide that service
because they don't have the ability to pay for those lanes anymore?
Small businesses, consumers, and all Americans who care about a level
playing field on the internet have every reason to be concerned by the
FCC's repeal of net neutrality protections, but their ill-considered
rollback doesn't have to be the last word. We can bring to the floor a
bipartisan resolution to prevent the FCC's rollback from going forward.
A coalition of more than 6,000 small businesses across the country
sent a letter to Congress asking us to protect them by overturning the
FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality. Further, at my field hearing
last week, Granite State small businesses offered compelling testimony
about the importance of net neutrality to their competitiveness and
their ability to expand and hire new workers. We must not ignore this
groundswell of opposition to the FCC's rollback of rules that ensure
equal access to the internet.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the
Congressional Review Act resolution. Let's restore net neutrality
protections and ensure a free and open internet, with access on equal
terms, for all businesses and consumers.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I am proud to stand with my good
colleague from New Hampshire and all of my colleagues today in defense
of net neutrality.
Net neutrality has leveled the playing field for every American
consumer, allowing everyone to access and enjoy an open internet.
Thanks to the internet provided by schools and public libraries,
students have been able to utilize information available online to
enhance their education or help them do their homework.
I have heard from librarians and library administrators from all
across Nevada expressing their concerns about the direct negative
impact net neutrality's repeal would have on Nevadans. They told me
that repealing net neutrality would hamper their ability to provide
Nevadans with essential services. According to the Pew Research Center,
``Library users who take advantage of libraries' computers and internet
connections are more likely to be young, black, female, and lower
income.''
In Nevada, I know students who don't have access to internet at home
now go to the library to do their homework. Nevadans applying for jobs
currently use the internet in public libraries to connect with
employers to submit resumes and job applications. Many Nevadans use the
internet and internet access to learn new skills through training
resources that are available online.
In November of last year, I received a letter from the Las Vegas-
Clark County Library District strongly opposing the repeal of net
neutrality. The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District is the largest
in the State and serves over 1.6 million people. The letter reads:
Many of our customers, even in the urban areas of the
county, are not able to afford access to the internet at
their homes at all, and rely on public libraries to complete
their school work, research information about starting small
businesses, and whatever else they need to do on the
internet.
Limiting the ability of public libraries to provide fast, reliable
internet service means limiting opportunities for Nevadans to thrive.
Through simple online marketing or by using online sales platforms,
small businesses have the opportunity to improve their visibility and
expand their customer base.
It has become possible for startup companies to get a fair chance at
competing in highly saturated markets because of internet
accessibility.
It is true in Nevada and all across the country that the internet has
opened doors for jobs, businesses, education, innovation, and
technology, and net neutrality protections have allowed the country to
continue opening those doors.
As access to the internet has exploded, more and more Americans have
been empowered to start their own business ventures. More specifically,
there has been a sharp growth in women business owners due in large
part to a freely accessible, fair and open internet.
As you have heard, between 2007 and 2016, women-owned firms grew at a
rate of five times the national average, mirroring the emergence of the
internet as a platform for economic growth. For example, Etsy, an
online shopping platform, caters to small businesses, 87 percent of
which are owned by women.
Just last week, I held a roundtable in Reno with women entrepreneurs.
One of their biggest concerns was the repeal of net neutrality and how
that would adversely affect their business's profitability and success.
With net neutrality's repeal, business owners, like Katie, who
cofounded a tech company in Reno, would have to go up against large
corporations that can afford to buy faster internet speeds. This would
stifle competition, and it would cripple the growth of small businesses
like hers. Katie told me:
It would really be a stifling situation for us, not only
financially, but from an innovation standpoint. Your dollars
have to go to furthering your business, not paying to deliver
it.
Nevada's economic growth depends on the small business owners, like
Katie, who invest in our communities, and that is why we can't afford
to repeal net neutrality.
Chairman Pai's misguided decision to repeal net neutrality
protections threatens to change the internet as we know it. It
threatens our small businesses, access to online education, job growth,
and innovation by giving those who can afford to pay more the ability
to set their own rules.
Nevada's small businesses, local hospitals, public libraries, and
disadvantaged communities, among many others, will bear the burden as
they become subject to the whims of broadband providers that now have
the ability to elevate their own content and pick and choose which
websites Nevadans can have access to.
The FCC has a longstanding responsibility of protecting American
consumers and the public interest. While Chairman Pai refuses to
properly do his job, I urge my colleagues to vote in support of the CRA
and stand with all Americans, regardless of their income.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, when we look at what this body has done
over the past year and a half, when we look at what the U.S. Senate
stands for and what the 100 Members of the Senate have done in the last
18 months, unfortunately, one thing is really clear: Corporations get
handout after handout while ordinary Americans get the shaft.
Corporations are doing really, really, really well, especially those
companies that shut down production in places like Mansfield, Toledo,
Lima, and Gainesville and moved production overseas; those companies
are rewarded. They are rewarded because down the hall, often in the
dead of night, lobbyists gather in the majority
[[Page S2588]]
leader's office and write tax legislation, write healthcare
legislation, and write consumer legislation that always helps the
richest and the biggest and the most profitable in our country and
leaves out the middle class, working families, and low-income
Americans.
We saw it with the tax bill. Eighty percent of the benefits over the
course of this bill--80 percent of the benefits, $4 out of every $5--go
to the top 1 percent of earners in this country. Reports show that
corporations have funneled their tax savings to executives and
investors over workers by a three-to-one margin.
The people who wrote this tax bill promised us that the money saved
by large corporations--their tax rates were cut from 35 to 22 percent
and other kinds of tax goodies were bestowed on the largest
corporations in this country. They promised the tax savings would go to
higher wages for workers and investments in communities that produce
more jobs. Do my colleagues know what happened not too many weeks ago?
General Motors near Youngstown, OH, announced they were laying off
1,500 workers.
General Motors saved billions of dollars under the tax bill, but that
money didn't go to Youngstown or Ohio or the workers, and it didn't go
to investments in communities; it went to the executives in higher
compensation. Right before the tax break, the five top-earning
executives at General Motors brought home $100 million last year. That
was before the tax cut, before taxes were raised on all of you in the
middle class. Taxes are raised on working families over time, and the
tax breaks go to the richest people in this country.
We saw it with the tax bill. We saw it with the rollback in
protections for consumers. It is easier for big banks and payday
lenders to take advantage of their customers and deny those customers
their day in court when they are cheated.
We see it in healthcare legislation when Members of this body--well-
paid U.S. Senators, well-paid, get good benefits, good healthcare
coverage--were willing to vote time and again to take that healthcare
coverage away from consumers. In Ohio alone, 500,000 people right now--
over the course of the last few years--have gotten opioid treatment for
their addiction because they had insurance under the Affordable Care
Act. These Members of the Senate have tried to take it away from them.
Now the question is: Are we going to see it again? Are we going to
see the bias in this body for the wealthiest, largest corporations on a
tax bill, on a bank bill, on a healthcare bill--are we going to see it
again with net neutrality? Are my colleagues going to allow corporate
special interests to shut down the free and open internet or, for
once--for once--is this body going to stand for the people we serve?
Net neutrality rules keep the internet free from corporate
interference. Protecting those rules is vital to protecting free speech
and consumer choice and access to public information.
But last December, the FCC--the Federal Communications Commission--on
a party-line vote, where there is a majority of Republicans on this
Commission, voted to repeal those rules by one vote, allowing internet
providers to slow down internet speeds and offer better connectivity to
the highest bidder.
I don't know any individual in Dayton or Cincinnati or Gallipolis or
Bellaire, OH, who has said to me: I don't want net neutrality; I want
corporations to be able to charge different rates and stick it to
people with low incomes and offer something better to those people who
are wealthy. I have never heard anybody say that.
I know companies that benefit from changing the net neutrality rules;
I don't know any individuals who want to do that. But it is not
individuals and the middle class that control this body or control the
Federal Communications Commission. It is the people who represent the
largest corporate interests.
We know that without net neutrality rules, broadband providers can
charge customers more for faster speeds, squeezing out startups,
squeezing out nonprofits and rural consumers--consumers who can't
afford to pay an extra fee. They could be forced to pay for internet
packages the way we do cable packages--paying more for popular sites
and to have pages load faster. Anyone who has ever been on the phone
negotiating packages with their cable company knows how frustrating it
can be and knows where this could be headed.
High-speed internet is expensive enough as it is. Customers already
have too few choices. In some cases in Ohio, for instance, people in my
State have no choice at all. I will never forget that not too many
years ago I was talking to a high school sophomore who told me she
lives in very hilly Appalachia, Southeast Ohio, and she told me that
she can't really study at home because she doesn't have access to the
internet, to any kind of high-speed internet, because she lives in a
valley. She goes to her grandmother's up on a hill to study so she can
do her school work the way she needs to. If we don't stand up to the
Federal Communications Commission, if we don't stand up to these big
telecommunications companies, if we don't stand up and do the right
thing here, that will continue to be a problem and increasingly be a
problem for far too many Ohioans. A free and open internet that levels
the playing field for entrepreneurs and startups to compete with big
corporations is what we need to have.
So many of my colleagues love to talk about their support for
business, but the question is which businesses. It is small businesses
that drive job creation. It is small businesses that create two-thirds
of all net new jobs. These are the companies that will be hurt the most
if the biggest corporations--again, in this Senate--are allowed to
gouge them for internet fees.
This shouldn't be partisan. Nobody separates themselves as
Republicans and Democrats out in my State on these kinds of issues, but
here it is partisan. Here it is partisan because, first of all, the
administration looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, with
this huge--this very decided bias toward the wealthiest people in this
country. We know that on issue after issue, this body always sides with
the largest corporations, but small businesses will be the ones that
are hurt the most, as I said.
It shouldn't be partisan. We know the internet is vital to modern
life and modern businesses.
Today I spoke to a woman from Cleveland, OH, a small business owner
named Helen Quinn. She and her husband, Jesse Mason, started Mason's
Ice Cream as a food truck that would go to local farmers markets. Using
tools from Google and others, they were able to grow a following for
their business. In 2014 they had reached a point where they had been
successful enough that they were able to buy an old, iconic walkup ice
cream shop in Ohio City, a neighborhood west of downtown Cleveland, not
far from where I live. They are now operating full time. They employ
local Clevelanders. They partner with other small businesses in the
neighborhood.
This Friday, Helen and Jesse will join me in Cleveland for the Grow
with Google summit to talk to other small businesses and entrepreneurs
and job seekers about the best techniques for using the internet to
grow businesses and find jobs. I would bet any amount that there will
not be one person there--not one entrepreneur, not one job seeker, not
one business owner--who says: Oh, I want to relax these net neutrality
rules. I want to side with the big corporations instead of allowing
free and equal access to the internet.
Why would we want to make that harder and more expensive? Rolling
back these net neutrality rules will hurt the very people all of us
claim we want to help--small businesses, startups, students, Americans
looking for jobs. Those are the people who will get hurt.
Many large corporations will do well under this bill. That typically
is the motive and mission for people who come out of the majority
leader's office, these lobbyists who are always working on these issues
to help corporate America. But rolling back these rules will hurt those
very people we claim to want to help--again, small businesses and
startups and entrepreneurs and students and Americans looking for jobs.
That is why today we are filing a petition to get moving on a bill to
overturn this disastrous decision and reinstate net neutrality rules.
[[Page S2589]]
It is another question fundamentally, as pretty much every debate
here is, of whose side you are on. Are my colleagues going to stand,
again, with the biggest telecom corporations as they stood with the big
corporations that outsourced jobs, as they stand with Wall Street, as
they stand with Big Tobacco, as they stand with the Koch brothers, as
they stand with the big healthcare companies that deny insurance and
deny healthcare to working families? Are they going to stand with
them--with big telecom companies that slow down the internet, slow down
the economy to pad their own bottom lines? Are we going to stand with
the people we serve--with hard-working Americans and small businesses
and students and entrepreneurs who need access to the internet?
The internet doesn't belong to a wealthy few. This Senate too often
belongs to a wealthy few. It shouldn't. A lot have opposed those
efforts. We know, though, that the internet should not belong to a
wealthy few. The internet belongs to the people we were sent here to
represent.
I hope my colleagues will join me and sign this petition to protect a
free and open internet.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). Without objection, it is so
ordered.